First of all, a lot of technology is doing straight up wizard shit. Fire in the palm of your hand? Carriages that travel without horse or driver? A house that obeys your commands by itself? A mirror you can speak into and another being can hear your words? This shit WAS magic.
Secondly, what counts as indistinguishable is based on our ability to distinguish things. To an omniscient 3rd party, they can see everything and notice what obeys physics and what does not. But for a long time, we couldn’t tell between bacteria and curses, or between head pressure and demons.
So a 15th century bumpkin could not hope to distinguish between our technology and straight up magic. And there will be future tech to which we are not unlike that bumpkin ourselves.
There’s two parts to it.
First of all, a lot of technology is doing straight up wizard shit. Fire in the palm of your hand? Carriages that travel without horse or driver? A house that obeys your commands by itself? A mirror you can speak into and another being can hear your words? This shit WAS magic.
Secondly, what counts as indistinguishable is based on our ability to distinguish things. To an omniscient 3rd party, they can see everything and notice what obeys physics and what does not. But for a long time, we couldn’t tell between bacteria and curses, or between head pressure and demons.
So a 15th century bumpkin could not hope to distinguish between our technology and straight up magic. And there will be future tech to which we are not unlike that bumpkin ourselves.